domingo, 28 de febrero de 2016

I am here again with a curating mission! It is essential to curate in order to have materials at hand at any time. To do that, I have choosen the website Pinterest because I am familirizated with it due to the previous challenge.

I have created a board with the title Storytelling resources taking into account that the title is part of the URL, so it must be illustrative of the resources and topic I am compiling. Finally, I have filled my board with useful links, for my eproject or for anyone who is interested in that topic, taken from the collaborative bank we compiled together in the previous mission, and adding additional content that I feel like it.

I find this challenge really useful because I usually find resources that I would like to use in class but perhaps, I don't find them at the right moment so having a place to compile them around different topics can be the perfect solution for me!

I am here again to talk about a new mission that we have had!! We have created a bank of common knowledge for CLIL e-projects on Pinterest!! Each of the 32 students of my Master's class has posted 6 free resources and without copyright on a common board of Pinterest. It has been a really good way of knowing a bit more about Pinterest. I hadn't seen a bank of common knowledge like that before, so, in my opinion it has been a meaningful challenge and I like it! We have also taken into account that the resources we post don't have copyright and we can share them as we saw in the previous challenge.I think it is good to give it a try at school and we, as teachers, create a bank of common knowledge with our students. By doing that, they will have the opportunity to add resources as valued as the teacher's ones.The six resources that I have chosen to post are:- How to make a minibook: "The very hungry caterpillar". A good story to review the days of the week, the fruits or the life cycle of a butterfly in Sciences. The kids will retell the story with their own minibooks!Click here for more details- The ultimate list of Educational websites! You have there a list of links about courses, language learning, books, videos, programming, music, documentaries, random knowledge and so on and so forth.Click here for more details

- 6 Storytelling Apps That Get English Language Learners Talking. Digital storytelling can be an effective way for ELLs to practice speaking English without the stress of being “on stage.” Apps and tech tools allow students to practice in the comfort of their own home by themselves or with a caregiver.

You can also create your own licence with the conditions you think that are more suitable for you. Just click here: http://creativecommons.org/choose/?lang=en

The reason why I created it is because I think it's good to share on sites free and people are welcome to download resources for their personal and/or classroom use only. However, design and all contents shouldn't be reproduced in any format or placed on another website without permission.

As for the question what does my license allow others to do with my CLIL e-materials? The answer is my licence allows people to adapt my work and share it with others but they can’t use them for comercial purposes. In my opinion that’s fantastic because we can save much time by using lesson plans that people have already created but, as in everything, we have to recognise people’s effort and work so if they don’t allow us, we shouldn’t use their work to earn money.

Regarding the last question, what are good ways to motivate our students to use Creative Commons material and attribute properly? I will work on the importance of respecting other people in a cross-curricular way at school. We will read a story about feelings and the students will create their digital stories based on the story read before but they will have to create a new end too. After that, we will discuss and we will share opinions about how we would feel if someone use our stories to earn money. Finally, we will learn how to cite, attribute the information and create a Creative Commons license for our digital stories too.

domingo, 21 de febrero de 2016

I have made my current PLE and PLN for CLIL. First of all, I want to say that I didn’t know much about CLIL before starting this Master in Bilingual Education. I knew that some subjects are currently taught in English in Bilingual schools but I didn’t understand very well how, when and why. However, I think that the learning process and the discovering that we all are doing help us much to know new things.

I created my diagram with Easelly http://www.easel.ly/create?id=https://s3.amazonaws.com/easel.ly/all_easels/1488523/1455975180&key=pri . I usually use a wordle creator to do online spider diagrams but I feel that tool is less sophisticated than Easelly and we don’t have the possibility of including arrows to connect words. Because of thaose reasons finally, I have tried a new one that is Easelly as I have mentioned above. I like this tool because it lets us choose so many options. During or after using it, we have an option that is to download our diagram in a PDF document too, so we can save it and have a look at it without internet connection.

I have distributed my diagram in two big sections that are interrelated:

My PLE (Personal Learning Environment) that it is based on the searching that I do to know more about CLIL. I want to highlight the following sites:

- TEDtalks: I use it to watch fascinating short videos about a huge variety of topics.

- TES: I use it to find resources that can be applied in a CLIL class.

In this section I am going to present you my twitter account and some of the reasons why we all should have one.Setting up a Twitter account is only one part of the process of establishing a viable presence online. We can learn a lot from people that are relevant to follow depending on the area you wish to become part of.If you have already one and you want to know more about me, follow me: @GMEstrellaa https://twitter.com/GMEstrellaa . But if you don't have an account and you want to create it you can follow these steps to start building your digital identity:

Create an account (Choose your nick carefully).

Add a profile picture (i.e. a personal photo).

Write a brief bio including the details of your choice.

Show your personal website or blog, if you have one. If you don't, no issues, you will be able to add it later.

As a social networking site, Twitter is one of the biggest online places where you can meet people from different cultures and orientations.
But more than knowing what people from the other side of the world are liking at the moment, what's important is getting the opportunity to be acquainted with future friends may also be interested in the same things or might even live in the same locality.
You can meet some of the best friends you will ever have in your life by searching for them in a few discussion places on Twitter.

For instance, I am learning a lot about CLIL at present and I have used the hashtag #ictclil_urjc to share my own definition of CLIL.

I encourage you to do the same, you won't regret it. Twitter is a nice way of being connected and updated.

A 3,2,1 introduction is a way of introducing yourself presenting interesting information about you in 3 steps: Firstly, tell 3 things that people should know about you. Secondly, share 2 of your passions and finally, tell everybody your dream occupation you would like to have if you weren't what you are at this moment.

At the beginning I used Star Wars creator, that is a helpful tool to create our own Star Wars presentations, to produce my 3,2,1 introduction. It’s very easy to use this video creator, you only need to add a text and the website convert it into a video very quickly.

This website isn’t in the list that María Jesús showed us but the reason of my choice was because I found that web by chance some time ago and I wanted you to know more sites to create presentations. In fact, I’ve already used it to make other presentations before, Star Wars is very trendy now and most of the kids are familiar with it so the videos that you create will probably be very close to their interests.

Other advantage that I want to highlight is that students can create their own presentations in the classroom too, I think they aren’t going to have big problems dealing with it. By doing that, the students will develop familiarity and competence in this area at the same time they learn, communicate and recreate something new. The main drawback that I see is that you can only modify the text but if you like the topic of the video, that will be fine to reach your goals as a Primary Education English teacher understanding the potential for gaming in class.

Did you like my Star Wars introduction? After a few days, I considered María Jesús' recommendation and, what did I do? I made a new attempt trying another tool which is more suitable for visually attractive introductions, and that allows following the 321 format better. The secret is keep working. The more you work, the better your craft. It’s that simple. The more you create, the easier it is to spot your mistakes. I have used Storybird now. I think that tool is very useful to make our own stories fostering our imagination and creativity. Moreover, I think that Storybird has lots of possibilities to use in the classroom, for instance, children would be able to create their own book easily. Storybird is very original and full of details. You can add your own characters, backgrounds, objects and also edit them in a great variety of size, proportion and colour.